UK Political weblog

Archive for the category “The Queen”

No wonder the Royal family want to be exempted from the Freedom of Information Act. Not content with the millions of Pounds that the taxpayers are forced to hand over to them in order to fund their lavish lifestyle, they even attempted to dip their greedy hands into the fund set up to help people on low incomes heat their homes. The report in the Independent shows just how far they will go to line their bulging pockets even further.

DEFENCE: We believe that threatening the annihilation of millions of fellow humans is wrong so we are getting rid of all nuclear weapons. This will make us less of a threat and so reduce our risk of attack. We will also save billions of Pounds.

We will have a review of the past few hundred years to see just why we have rampaged around the globe engaging in acts of aggression and stop doing it. Our military services will have only defensive weapons and therefore we will finally pose no threat to any other nation thereby further reducing our risks to near zero.

HOUSING: No further second homes will be allowed and existing ones will pay treble Council Tax until there are no more homeless or sub standard housing. All private property will become State owned on the demise of the current owners. (This will reduce house prices enormously and make them affordable places to live in and not investments for profit)

ENERGY: Rail, Electricity supply, Gas and Water will be re-nationalised.

WAGES & BENEFITS: All State benefits (except unemployment) will be cancelled and in their place the national minimum wage will be raised to a level fit to live on, along with pensions. There will be no unemployment benefit on leaving education until at least two years of employment have been completed. Benefit will be earnt by community service to prevent drifting into benefit dependency. No one will be allowed to earn more than ten times the minimum wage and bonuses will be outlawed. A fair days pay for a fair days work will be the norm.

TRANSPORT: Cities and urban areas with good public transport will be subject to an extra vehicle tax similar to the London congestion charge. Money raised will offset fuel reductions to those in rural areas where personal transport is essential.

DEMOCRACY: A good idea which will be adopted starting with an elected Head of State rather than an unelected monarchy. The second chamber shall also only have elected members. A fair voting system will be adopted where no vote is a wasted vote.

All connections between religion and the State shall be severed and all tax advantages currently applied to churches, mosques etc will end.

CRIME: All drugs will be de-criminalised and available on prescription thereby cutting up to 70% of crime. This will have the added benefit of slashing the prison population which doesn’t work anyway and saving huge sums of money.

The creation of a more fair and equal society would of itself reduce the incidence of crime. The current method of sentencing is ineffective, there being no point in a fixed time inside, therefore custodial terms will be opened ended. That is to say when it is considered the offender is ready to take his/her proper productive place back in society then they are released with adequate support and not before.

EDUCATION: Management costs will be no more than 1% of the budget and teachers will revert to running the schools and colleges. Choice of school will be abolished and all schools will be of an approved standard in all areas. University fees will be abolished but a small lifetime increase in income tax will enable graduates the satisfaction of repaying society for the privilege.

Private education establishments will be abolished by ever increasing taxation.

HEALTH: Management costs as for education. Medical staff taking more responsibility for running hospitals and clinics etc. A State pharmaceutical research facility will be set up and tight controls put on those in the private sector. Drugs which are highly expensive and merely prolong life by months will not be available.

Private health care will be abolished by progressively rising taxes.

LAND: All land will be nationalised without compensation and a rent paid for all private property upon it.

Well, that’s it, the General Election date is finally to be announced today. The date when we, the electorate, shall decide to whom we will lend our power for the next probable five years. Yes, our power, as citizens in a supposedly free and democratic society.

Before this can happen though our elected Prime Minister must go to Buckingham Palace and ask the Queen to dissolve Parliament in order for the election to take place. It is a national humiliation that the permission, even if somewhat symbolically, of an unelected, undemocratic, Head of State who is only there by virtue of being born into one particular family, should be sort.

If we elect a party with an overall majority then the Government is not effective until the Monarch has given her approval and in the event of a ‘hung Parliament’ again it is the Queen who ‘invites’ one Party to form the Government. In addition it is through the Monarch’s Privy Council that powers that we, the people, did not give to the Prime Minister of the day are wielded. It is time to embrace true democracy and end our humiliation.

A couple of days ago the Commons voted for restrictions to the Freedom of Information Act so that senior members of the Royal family are exempt for FOI requests. This is a disaster for democracy.

Should this Bill make it through the process and let’s hope it fails of course, then we will not know what lobbying Prince Charles, for example, has been doing on behalf of his architectural preferences or some of his other crack pot schemes. We will not know if Government decisions are being made in the interests of the people or of the Royals.

As long as we have an unelected and hereditary head of state then Royals should be subject to more scrutiny not less.

You may not read The Telegraph very often but do read this article for a big laugh before you choke on an upwelling of outrage.

The Duke of York, Prince Andrew, had the gall to say that he was taken aback at MP’s expenses and this from a guy who last year spent £4,000 of our money on a 146 mile helicopter trip. The mind boggles.

So, David Cameron, leader of the Tories and likely to be our next Prime Minister (God help us all) promises that he will cut Minister’s salaries by 5%, take the subsidy off the Commons restaurant and reduce the cost of government cars. After all, as he put it:- “If there is something that really annoys people it’s seeing politicians swanning around in chauffeur driven cars like they’re the Royal Family.”

Good point Dave so how about having a close look at that Royal Family and the estimated cost of £183 million per year that they cost us? If, as you say, leaders should lead by example then unelected leaders should set an even greater example don’t you think?

The royal family’s travel costs have been spiralling out of control for some time and with the Royal Train being used at a cost of tens of thousands of Pounds for even short trips the Queen has embarked on cost cutting.

Yes she has, really! She wants a Royal Jet at a cost of £3million plus the cost of fitting it out in a style fit for a queen and of course there’s the running costs and as for the carbon footprint, well, let’s not even go there.

A press conference to present the Royal accounts today has been cancelled. We all know, or should know, that these accounts are in any case far from transparent and are never properly audited, so what are they afraid of?

In addition, the Queen is asking for even more cash from us stating that there is a £5million hole in the finances. Isn’t an estimated £180million per year enough! Quite rightly the expenditure of public money by members of Parliament has come under the microscope and so to should the Royals whose lavish lifestyles we support.

Update: Just been announced that they will be published after all but NO press conference! Wouldn’t want any awkward questions now would they?